Tag - Lina Helander

The International Trail-Running Association has released its list of athletes engaged in the QUARTZ Elite Program, revealing a growing number of entrants over past installments. Touting the included names as the first time “a discipline gives its elite athletes the chance to contribute actively to a doping-free sport by signing up for a unique health monitoring program,” the ITRA reports that 71 male and female runners have elected to participate.

Using the ITRA Performance Index as a guide, the program is offered free of charge to top 10 athletes in the men’s and women’s rankings, as well as the top 3 in each trail category and athletes returning from suspension after having previously tested positive at an event.

Among those listed are such high-profile names as USA’s Jim Walmsley, Tim Tollefson and Tim Freriks, Spain’s Kilian Jornet Burgada and Pau Gapell, and French athletes Francois D’Haene and Nicolas Martin. Female athletes who have responded to the invitation include USA’s Megan Kimmel, Camille Herron and Katie Schide, Caroline Chaverot and Nathalie Mauclair from France, and Sweden’s Ida Nilsson and Lina Helander.

Photo Credit: Camille Herron

Organized by Athletes for Transparency and the Ultra Sports Science foundation, the QUARTZ program’s stated mission is to “allow everyone to contribute to a sport without doping, whilst safeguarding the health of the runners.” Touting its worldwide growth, the program is divided into 3 sub-programs: QUARTZ Elite, QUARTZ Event (“for race organizers who wish to make runners’ health a priority”) and QUARTZ Regular (“for all runners who wish to act on behalf of their own health”). The program’s site says that more than 300,000 users have registered since the program’s 2015 inception.

Photo Credit: 71 athletes take part of the Elite QUARTZ Program.

Athletes for Transparency was launched in 2004, with the intent of developing the sport’s rules and ethics, as well as promoting the health of its athletes in a doping-free environment. ITRA was created in 2013, aiming to give a voice to the world of trail running while promoting tenets of strong ethical codes, diversity, race safety and runner health as well as fostering exposure with national and international institutions interested in the sport.

Photo Credit: 71 athletes take part of the Elite QUARTZ Program.

As part of the process, QUARTZ Elite runners have the opportunity to make their data public. As any observer can see on the organization’s public profiles page , these athletes have chosen to provide information on their use of medications, dietary supplements, and other information that can only contribute to the sport’s transparency.